Hong Lam Marine of Singapore has again taken advantage of the sell-off of failed Singaporean tanker owner Xihe Holdings fleet.
The company, which owns and operates one of Singapore's largest fleet of bunker tankers — together with small product tankers that are used in regional services — has emerged as the buyer of at least one of four small clean product tankers that were put up for auction on 9 December.
The 12,000-dwt epoxy-coated Ocean Jack (built 2018) was handed over to Hong Lam on 30 December and subsequently renamed Canopus.
It is unclear whether Hong Lam was also the buyer of the identical sister ship Ocean Manta (built 2017), which court records indicate was handed over to its new owner on the same day.
Previously, Hong Lam acquired a 13,800-dwt chemical tanker newbuilding that was under construction for Xihe at Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding.
The outcome of the auctions for two additional sister ships in the Xihe quartet — the Ocean Goby (built 2017) and Ocean Porpoise (built 2018) — that were also sold via a sealed bid tender process in December has yet to be revealed.
Officials at the Sheriff of Singapore's office do not reveal the outcome of auction sales until the winning bidders have paid for the vessel and taken delivery — a process that can take several weeks.
The product tankers were arrested last August by the Bank of America over defaulted mortgage payments. At the time, VesselsValue had pegged a spot value of between $11.2m and $12.6m on each depending on their build date.
Larger disposals
While the disposal of the Xihe quartet is in process, brokers report that yet another of the company's larger tankers — the 50,400-dwt MR2 product tanker Ocean Pluto (built 2007) — has been sold by the organisation's liquidators to undisclosed Chinese interests for $9.5m.
TradeWinds was told that the Ocean Pluto was one of the few Xihe tankers that continued trading after the company's collapse in early 2020. According to vessel tracking website MarineTraffic, the ship was en route from Mozambique to Fujairah on Thursday.
Bids on Xihe's last VLCC — the 316,600-dwt Wu Yi San (built 2012) — were due in at the Sheriff of Singapore's office on 4 January.
While the outcome of the auctions of the Wu Yi San and Hermes Marine Management's 320,000-dwt crude carrier Chloe V (built 2011), which was auctioned in Singapore on 30 December, have yet to be revealed, sources closely following both auctions said many "big name" tanker operators had inspected the vessels.
